


Strangers in a Strange Land

by icarus_chained



Series: True Deceptions [4]
Category: DCU - Comicverse, Justice League of America (Comics), Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Cold War, Espionage, F/M, M/M, One Night Stands, Other, Shapeshifting, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-28
Updated: 2012-04-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya Kuryakin. J'onn J'onzz (in a female alterego). Ships passing in the night (well, a cafe in daylight, near UNCLE HQ, but).</p><p>Set main MFU timeframe (ie, roughly the mid-sixties).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers in a Strange Land

**Author's Note:**

> Stand-alone, but set in the same universe as my [True Deceptions](http://archiveofourown.org/series/17755) series. Uses J'onn's female alterego Katerina from that series, and references the events of the first of those stories. Reading the others probably not necessary for understanding, though. *sheepish*

She came often to one of his favourite evening cafes. Just to sit, with a hot chocolate and sometimes a book. Just to sit, and stare out the window with a kind of sad amusement. She was ... very beautiful, in a very Eastern European kind of way, with that auburn hair and those soulful red-brown eyes. She was the kind of woman that tempted Illya to wax poetic in true Napoleon style, and given his pragmatic nature, that was quite something.

In short, he was quite enchanted.

He found himself coming there more and more often, when Napoleon was out on one of his dates, or in the lulls between missions, or even when he simply had the time and the desire to see her. A decadent habit, perhaps, but one he was fully content to allow himself. She was mesmerising.

There was a part of him -quite a large part- that suspected she was a THRUSH plant set to entrap him. Paranoia was the name of the game in his line of work, after all. But something in him, some instinct, dismissed the thought every time. She would not do such a thing. Not willingly. Unwilling, perhaps, was another story, but he trusted in what he saw of her nature. She was not of THRUSH's ilk.

Had he ever seen Illya as he was now, sitting watching a beauty from afar, Napoleon would undoubtedly have chastised him for not at the very least speaking to her. Possibly he would have swanned over to show Illya how it was done. For once, the thought gave rise to more amusement than annoyance. This woman, he sensed, would not fall so easily to the infamous Solo charm. No. No casual thing for this foreign beauty, not with that air of sadness around her, that sense of loneliness. All or nothing for her, and she would certainly be worth it. But that was why Illya would not approach. Bound as he was to UNCLE and the mission, he could not offer her what she deserved, and he knew too well the pain of false hope. He would not offer it to another.

This evening, he sat watching her again, as she curled in her seat by the window where the sunset painted her red-gold. No book this time. No hot chocolate. Just her, alone and musing, watching the evening crowds stream by, her expression pensive and bemused. He wondered what it was that puzzled her so. He often wondered such things, gently pondering what thoughts moved behind those melancholy features. Never before had he reached an answer that satisfied him.

Tonight he did.

{I wonder why you watch me so,} a soft voice whispered in his mind, and Illya barely concealed his jump of startlement. The voice was sourceless, no machine or human agency behind it. He knew that. He had swept the area for bugs instinctively, as habitually as shaving or breathing. The life of an agent did that to you. And he knew beyond doubt that the voice had no outside source.

{Correct,} the voice murmured once more, calm and deep and resonant, a thing of beauty for all that it frightened him somewhat. Illya, of all people, could not countenance the thought of interference in his mind, the thought of madness. He would rather THRUSH tortured him to death than face that. And on the heels of that thought, his eastern beauty turned in her place, an expression of consternation and apology clear in her face, and met his eyes. Illya started slightly, staring, and once more the voice whispered to him.

{I am sorry,} she said, except the voice in his mind was masculine. {I had not sensed such a fear in you before. Only your surface thoughts, no deeper. I did not mean to cause you fear.}

Illya blinked at her, feeling an acute sense of surreality, but his naturally irrascible nature pushed past his incredulity enough to respond testily. {You did not think that suddenly speaking to my mind might cause me to be the slightest bit frightened?} he snapped, a flood of Russian sentiment rising behind the crisp, English thought. Several unflattering terms in his native language floated to the surface, and to his surprise, she laughed at them, clearly understanding them. Or possibly only their nature, but still she seemed not at all offended.

{Again,} she murmured, {I apologise. It merely seemed to me that you were not a man to frighten easily, Mr Kuryakin. Even when faced with one such as I.} She stood as she said this, and moved towards his table, taking a seat opposite him with casual ease. Despite himself, he had to admire her still.

{What _are_ you?} he murmured, unable to speak aloud for some reason. Secrecy, maybe, or mere habit that once a conversation is begun in one language, it is bad manners to switch suddenly. Mind-to-mind was not a language he had known before, but Illya Kuryakin was nothing if not adaptable.

A cloud passed over her features at that question, and suddenly all other concerns left his mind, foundering on the deep sense of loss and loneliness and strangeness that swept through his mind from her. A very familiar feeling, to Illya, a Russian in America, a man used to being forced alone into strange new places. A very familiar feeling, one he had not felt in such a long time. Not since before Napoleon, really. Since that partnership and friendship had opened the doors of his life once more, and whisked away almost all possibility of loneliness. He ached for her, that she had yet to find something of her own to make this place her home.

{I am a stranger in a strange land,} she said softly, with a strange kind of wry sadness. Illya blinked, vaguely recognising the reference ... and then it did hit him, and he raised an eyebrow incredulously. In response, she smiled ever so sadly, and a picture formed in his mind, sent by her. A creature, a man, green and spiny and tall, his amber eyes glowing softly, standing in a barren, red landscape, desolate and lonely, aching with loss. {J'onn,} the voice whispered in his mind. {I am called J'onn.} And if there were other names swimming beneath that vocalised thought, if there were echoes of other people, other beings, other worlds, wrapped up in that name and it meanings ... it was nothing Illya did not understand. Oh, not the particulars. But the sense. The memory, the loss, the names of lost family written into words and objects that passed through your hands every day, the memories ever-present, faded and tired but never lost.

{Russia,} he whispered.

{Mars,} the answer.

{Home,} the meaning.

She ... he? ... smiled at him then, the alien presence in his mind seeming to reach out in gratitude, and on impulse Illya reached out to take her hand across the table. He was bewildered, uncertain, half convinced this was a hallucination brought on by some THRUSH drug, but despite all that his instinct was to comfort, to share the empathic understanding he had for this creature, whoever or whatever she was. Whoever _he_ was, and really such gender confusion was annoying. For a moment, the thought of Napoleon facing such confusion flashing through his mind, and he restrained a deep laugh. Oh, what a look would be on his partner's face! Napoleon, he thought, would not deal well with a man in woman form. Well. A male in woman form, anyway.

{Man will do,} J'onn murmured suddenly. {This form is ... undercover? An undercover operation.} Illya's agent instincts snapped forward in an instant, wondering for who and what in rapid succession, and the slim hand in his tightened briefly in reassurance. {No. Not like that. An ... undercover life, maybe. A chance at ... this form allows me things that others do not, things I ... things I believed I had lost.} Images flashed between, of a life almost painfully normal, of a woman formed for a purpose who had taken on a life of her own. {Katerina,} J'onn whispered, and there was something deeper again behind that name, a face loved and lost in the space of days, a man in a distant city.

{Why me?} Illya asked, suddenly. {Why show this to me? We've only met.} And he was confused. Grateful, but confused.

She smiled at him. {You wondered how to ease my loneliness, as you watched me. You've been watching me for a long time.} Illya blushed faintly, and cursed his complexion once again. She smiled. {I have been watching back, you know. You seemed ... familiar. Trustworthy.} And then, fainter, distant. {Like someone I once knew.} A man's face in a distant city, smiling to ease her loneliness. For some reason, Illya thought of Napoleon's shoulder against his, and a partner's warmth in the snow. He wondered how he would feel if ever he lost that, and squeezed her hand convulsively. She tightened hers in return, and together they held on through the tremor.

{Da,} he murmured. {Da.} She looked at him, and for a second her eyes glowed the rich amber of the alien in his mind. A wash of sensation passed over him. Warmth. Understanding. Empathy. Caring. Longing. All things he knew so well, and echoed back to J'onn instinctively, sincerely.

{Illya,} she said, softly, with the meaning of names. He stared at her, at him, Katerina, J'onn, and suddenly a thought came to him. A thought of human sharing that he sensed this being had not experienced, something easily given, and hard, so hard, to forget.

{Lie with me tonight,} he said, hesitant and firm, an offer. She paused, almost flickered, and he remembered his earliest instinct. All or nothing, for her, and he could not give her all. But. But. There was plenty yet that he _could_ give, things he had learned the preciousness of many times over in his life, gifts he remembered made all the more cherished for their rarity. Safety. Warmth. Understanding. A presence to share the night with, to hold and sink into, someone who would not hurt, would not charge, would not take advantage. Someone who would give, and accept back in return. Someone who, just for a moment, just for a night, would be content to accept all that you were, weakness and strength, and then let go in the morning. Lives shared for the briefest of moments, comfort in dark times, and parted again with only shared memories.

{Dream,} J'onn murmured, suddenly, low and longing, and Illya frowned in confusion, until he felt her meaning. Minds, resting as close together as bodies, wrapped around each other, the dreams of one echoed in the other until they seemed as one, until morning came.

It was not an unpleasant thought, in its way, though his professional instincts cried out at the risk to UNCLE. But he trusted J'onn. He really did, for some reason he could not quite fathom, save for the recognition of a kindred spirit. He trusted J'onn.

{Yes,} he said, very softly, a whisper of agreement across their minds. {Da, Katerina. J'onn. Da.} And she smiled at him, with Katerina's face, and J'onn's fathomless presence.

That day, as never before and never again, they left the cafe together.


End file.
